


Winter Light

by Silvergirl



Series: Drawn to Stars [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Codas to Drawn to Stars, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:01:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21634084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvergirl/pseuds/Silvergirl
Summary: This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Drawn to Stars [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585843
Comments: 244
Kudos: 162
Collections: 2019 Advent Ficlet Challenge





	1. Snowflake

He’s always loved snowflakes. The idea of them: intricate, symmetrical, each one utterly unique. The shape of them: not square, solid, sturdy—but elongated, elegant, exquisite. The color of them: only apparently white, because crystals are prisms and will release all the colors of the world when the light hits them right, when the light is properly _conducted_. The stealthy power of them: you think snowflakes are fragile, but they can overwhelm and make a mockery of ordinary human expectations and endeavors. The shivery pallor of them: if he could, he would make himself small enough to stroke one, its smooth and translucent surface.

He’s stroking one now: intricate, playful, unlike any other in the world. Lean, powerful, variegated. One that hums with pleasure as strokes now firm now gentle wander unpredictably over his skin. One that any moment now will turn over and face him, pull him down for a kiss, smile and slip an artful tongue between his lips.

He’s always loved snowflakes, but never more than now.


	2. All I want for Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wish

— What's your wish, then? J

— What? Where are you? SH

— Oxford Street. What's your wish for Christmas? J

— What's anyone's wish for Christmas? SH

— Their heart's desire. J

— Never easy to figure out. SH

— I know what YOU wish for. J

— ? SH

— Serial killer. J

— That was a long time ago. SH

— I still remember you leaping into the air at the prospect, though. J

— I used to think calm was hateful. SH

— You still do. J

— I do not. You're the one who craves excitement. SH

— Yeah, not serial killer excitement. J

— What do you wish for, then? SH

— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqGfvtJvaSg

— I can't get you one of those boys. SH

— I don't want one of those boys. J

— Come home and I'll see what I can do. SH

— And your wish? J

— That's it. For you to come home. SH

— I'll see what I can do.


	3. Let's not (and say we did)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: the more the merrier

"Well, we could have a party," I muse, stroking the hair off his forehead.

He rarely accepts to lie down on the sofa at all; that's my preferred position, not his. But when he does stretch out, puts his head on my lap, lets the stress leak out of his back as I stroke his hair—those are moments for the Mind Palace. I've memorized them all, catalogued them, reread them whenever it seemed too long since it'd happened. This is a particularly good occasion: the roaring fire and the heavy curtains are sheltering us from an icy December night.

"We could," he agrees, without conviction.

"You don't sound enthusiastic."

"Surprised _you're_ suggesting it, is all."

"'Tis the season, and all that. I know you like company for the holidays," I add, combing my fingers through his short hair.

"Well, I also like eggnog latte, and I don't see you offering me that." His smile is audible in his voice even if I can't see it. I've always loved his teasing. It's intimate. Our private jokes.

"That's because eggnog latte is vile. And, if you were any kind of a proper doctor, unhealthy."

Now I've shifted to stroking along the muscles of his neck, carefully pressing each one down his nape, feeling them loosen one at a time.

"Everything's unhealthy in excess. Even the things that're good for you."

His jaw's gone so slack I have to imagine the last few words.

"Even this?" I press fingertips into the corner of his jaw, where so much tension is stored, and trace tiny circles there.

"No. Not that," he almost moans. "Not that."

"So, no party then? They do say 'the more the merrier,' you know."

How I hate clichés, and how well he knows it.

"Will you do this to me if we invite people in?" he asks, nudging his head under my hand like a dog whose owner has grown too soon weary of petting.

Ludicrous thought: he'd sooner practice medicine in the nude than be this demonstrative in public.

"No, I won't. This is just for us."

"See? They say wrong, then. The more is definitely not the merrier." He sounds almost smug as he carries his point.

Without any regret I relinquish the idea of inviting people in. We're merrier when it's just the two of us.


	4. Conductor of light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: lights

Once you called me a conductor of light, not luminous myself but enabling and channeling illumination. It wasn’t much of a compliment and maybe it wasn’t meant to be, but it made me think about all the ways I see _you_ in terms of light.

The first time I saw you the light in your microscope was reflecting back at you. I've seen you hundreds of times in that position now. The light of your cell phone, it's an extension of your arm now, so its reflection is a natural part of your face. The blue light from your laptop when you aren't even aware you're sitting in the dark, and the gold light from the fireplace when you are aware we're sitting in the dark. The light of the stars that you admitted were beautiful, and the supernova of your own brilliance. How the light gathers around you when you captivate an audience, as though they had no other option but to stare at you the way I do.

And now:

I think of the low light on your nightstand that you angle so it won’t wake me, when you're thinking or reading or putting some order in the Mind Palace. I love the glint in your jealous eyes when you think I’m flirting (I never am). I think of the sunlight that slants off your violin when you play at the window of the flat. I love the light of your gorgeous face when you come apart in my arms. I think of the chiaroscuro of your smile when you’re both remembering hard things, and remembering that they're past now. And I love, oh I love, how Christmas lights make coloured shadows on your face, and I think how many things you've brought to life and light and colour for me.

They aren't things I can tell you, not in words. I can barely tell this journal. You'll just have to understand it all from the conducted light.


	5. The gale, it plies the saplings double

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wind

  
I like a wuthering height as well as anyone. However, I have not yet deduced why we are climbing one in early December, through four inches of snow (only getting deeper as we gain elevation), in temperatures which, while not life-threatening, are nonetheless more likely to prompt yearning for whisky and a warm fire than any sense of exhilaration and accomplishment.

Still, I admit that the glittering blue sky and the blinding white landscape make a beautiful contrast. The scenery is perfect, particularly the harmonious composite of shapes directly in front of me as he leads the way. And our gear is quite adequate for comfort and safety. It’s a small effort I’ve been asked to make, and on the whole I’m happy to do so.

The real fly in the ointment is the wind. It burns my ears, makes conversation impossible, and has made a monstrous tangle of my hair (of course I’m not wearing the ridiculous Christmas-themed hat I found in our suitcase). The wind is probably also the reason for the gloriously clear sky, but it is still wholly surplus to requirements.

800 metres up, only 200 to go. We give each other great grins when the view opens up, small smiles when we’re maneuvering between rock walls and can’t see much besides each other.

We stop a bit short of the summit; I pointed out that the wind will be at its worst at the most exposed point, and we won’t be able to settle in and survey the blue-white winter fields and hillsides if our eyelashes are frozen shut. That had prompted an eyeroll but reluctant concession.

We sit, me behind him (I’m taller; better view for him, and I can murmur things in his ear, he likes that more than he’ll admit). He’s rifling about in his backpack, I imagine for the thermos of hot sweet tea and the sandwiches he packed. No—his reddened fingers pull out something much smaller, and hand it back to me. A box, already open.

It’s perfect. It’s bizarre. Why would he give me—a ring? Simple, rounded, no stones, white gold, the shape of a wedding ring. I thought he’d never want to go there again. It’s not as if marriage was an experience of unmixed bliss, after all.

He’s not talking. Neither am I.

I realise that can’t be encouraging, but I’m winded, and not from the climb. He’s not; he leans back into me and says, quite easily, “If you want to.”

I’m still shaken and speechless. I turn the ring to see the engraving inside. Nothing but a date: 29 January 2010.

He’s craning back to see my reaction, and I don’t know what I’m revealing but he remains quite serene.

“The way it always should have been,” he says. “But only if you want to. After all, we really already are.” Or at least I think that’s what I hear over the rising wind.

Yes. We already are. Still, yes. Yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from A.E. Housman, "On Wenlock Edge"


	6. Coffeeshop angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don't even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

A fine-boned blonde, English rose complexion, light blue eyes, how predictable. A smooth forehead entirely unlined by the effort of thought. Golden ringlets, tiny waist, deep lush bosom, high cheerful voice taking their order. Putting customers at ease, calling them “love.” Giving them a wink, on auto-pilot.

God, how you _loathe_ that predictability. The very same type as always, in demeanour and physique. Put her in a white gown, slap a pair of wings on her and glue her to a ceiling anywhere in Italy: a perfect Renaissance angel. Stick an instrument in her hands and put her in a Christmas tree.

This is going to be miserable. The drearily familiar ritual of half-shamefaced flirting, lacking in conviction but somehow a masculine imperative. Practically underway already, unfolding with the inexorability of an ordeal you’ve lived too often and too painfully. And with a girl far too young, at that.

But once he comes back with their coffees he never looks at her again. As though the angel had never existed. There’s no rehashing of the nightmare scenario, just a comfortable, affectionate half-hour together brightened with a few very tantalising allusions to the afternoon to come.

As you both rise to go he says remorsefully, “Oh, shit, I completely forgot. I was supposed to ask you: the girl at the counter would like to have your autograph.”

“ _My_ autograph?” You’re skeptical; she can’t have talked with him for so long for such a simple request.

“Yeah, she asked for more information about how you solved that string of robberies along this row. She was star-struck, wanted your autograph. I said I’d ask. Name’s Angela.”

You look up. She’s gone now, her shift must have ended. In a flush of benevolence you scrawl on the seasonal napkin, “Nomen sit omen: your parents named you well.” You sign the thing, leave it for her, and take him home, entirely reconciled to the English rose type which leaves him so thoroughly indifferent.


	7. Naughty and nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names. 
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

— Starlings? In the chimney? J

— Yes, apparently. I made a fire, and ten kilos of soot fell out and billowed black soot and ashes and two old nests into the sitting room. SH

— How long since the chimney was swept? J

— I meant to have it done before autumn, got distracted. SH

— Gives me something to put in your stocking, at any rate. J

— No, that’s coal. SH

. . .

— Have I been that bad? SH

— Hmm. Could be worse I suppose. J

— But could be better? SH

— Could always be better. J

— I’ll have to work on it, then. SH

— Please do. I’ll help. J

— Oh, will you? SH

— Yes, you’ll need my help, and I’m very good at helping. J

— So am I. SH

— Not with housework. J

— Housework is dull. Helping you deserve a good Christmas present isn’t. SH

— You’d deserve better Christmas presents if you did housework. J

— Very well, you can help me. SH

— What?! I already do! I don’t think you’re entirely clear on this naughty and nice thing, love. J

— I’ll cover myself in penitential ashes and soot, then. SH

— I’ll be home soon. Draw a warm bath, I’ll help you wash it off. J

to be continued   



	8. Silver linings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: warm bath

I don’t know what to expect when I walk into the flat: a layer of greasy soot everywhere, my beloved a charred Q-tip with eyeballs showing livid against the black grime, corpses of unfortunate birds on the sitting-room rug.

In fact it isn’t dramatic at all. Some effort to restore normalcy is visible, and a clear bin bag full of grime and newspaper sits by the door. In it I can see two disconcertingly large nests. If those are sparrows’ nests, I don’t want to see a raven’s nest.

I can hear the boiler thumping and clacking, the shower hissing and pouring, as I go down the hall to the bathroom and knock.

“ _Come_!” Peremptory.

I consider answers like “make me,” “Very well, Your Majesty,” or “All Ye Faithful.” But perhaps it isn’t the moment for levity. He might want soothing, or he might want stimulating, and sarcasm wouldn’t promote either.

He turns off the shower as I opened the door, and stands in the bath naked and wet and clean and pink and delectable.

Stimulating it is, then: he hadn’t felt like being bathed, but rather like bathing together. I smile and start undressing, as he plugs the bath and begins to fill it.

He decides to help me undress, mouthing a tender kiss on the skin he's exposing while I run my hands along his lean flanks and plush arse in turn. Caressing him while we wait for the tub to fill, wondering if my skin is as salty to his tongue as his is clean and sweet to mine. I could touch him all over, all day, run my tongue up his endless neck and lip at the underside of his jaw. I'm already looking forward, running through possibilities for after the bath. We've almost an hour, after all.

I ask, "In front? In back?"

"You, in front."

Nice. He means to spoil me, instead of me spoiling him. No complaints here. I lean back against him and we don't talk anymore.

We don't need to; we can talk through our skin, our sinews, our muscles. The language of his hands is almost translatable into English words, it’s like a conversation, it has the beats and repetitions of an established communication. The familiar patterns give the unexpected moves more effect, make them even more pleasurable.

First, the bathing. Hot water, emollient soap, a flannel to clean and rinse my back. It’s heaven. Humans are like dogs, that way, unable to clean and tend certain parts of our bodies, and in unlooked-for ecstasy when someone does it for us. Nothing escapes his attention, it’s humbling and deeply flattering that he can detect any and all tension and address it, his long strong fingers stroking out patterns on my neck, along my spine, in my forearms. Operating makes me feel reborn, but there’s no denying it’s as depleting as it is restorative: awkward positions, relentless focus.

Soap and water and flannel on my arms. My hands, my God, my hands, he’s a genius at massage. My chest, as I’m pulled up against his and my head resting on his left collarbone and shoulder. I know what all these gestures mean: _relax. Let it go. You’re home now_.

My belly. Now his motions slow down, turn more languid. More sly. More intentional. I hear his unspoken “how is this? —this? —and _this_?” as his soapy fingers stroke along my lower belly, grip and release my hipbones. Find and brush my cock, which is starting to show more and more interest, breaking the surface. He brushes it again, again, making sure that I can’t know when contact will come, making me chase it, shift against him to capture his touch.

He frustrates me, gently moving his hand—no, both hands now—down to my bollocks, framing them and reaching down to stroke behind them. And though we’re not talking, I groan, a resonant sigh in the tiled bathroom, and he does the thing I love with his teeth and tongue and my ear. The combination of that shivery sensation and his fingertips on my cock is unbearably intense, I’m as hard as a rock by the time his left hand returns to my chest to tease my left nipple.

By now I can feel him hard against me, rocking, gently and slowly so that a tiny series of waves starts to form around us in the bath.

His breathing is uneven too, now, his heartbeat speeding up under my shoulder blade, his hands finally, finally gripping me properly and giving me the grasp and friction he’s made me desperate for.

And there’s no doubt now how this is going to end. No games of deferral or denial or exquisite torture, we’re both too far gone, he from rocking against my arse and me from his hand sliding slickly up and down, seizing and gliding, running a finger along the frenulum until I can’t even catch my breath and it’s coming, coming, a great wave of pleasure crests and breaks and breaks again, I’m gasping and thrusting and so is he, almost in synchrony, and the whole thing is too beautiful for me to find words for, so I don’t.

Instead I stroke his hand, part his fingers, slot my own through them and bring the knuckles to my mouth to kiss.

"Have I redeemed myself somewhat?"

 _You have, my love, oh, you have_. When my legs stop trembling we get out of the bath and dry off, step into the bedroom for our last half-hour of quiet time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock as a Q-tip: that is cwb, from "I Just Want You For My Own."


	9. Subversive compliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: Festive, and once a year.  
> (Two-in-one, so I can try to catch up!)

Two ugly Christmas jumpers are laid out on the bed.

One is not so ugly, of course; its owner wouldn’t be seen dead in anything ugly enough to qualify for a competition. It is pearl grey, V-neck, cashmere (naturally), form-fitting, likely to hug and frame those hips, that arse, in trademark fashion. Nonetheless its design is surprisingly kitsch if discreet, featuring a tiny cheerful penguin in an unlikely Santa hat. A sequin forms the penguin’s eye, no less, and fluffy white fuzz edges the red velvet hat.

The other is full-on, flat-out, over-the-top ugly, the full ticket to dreadful. A kind of lumpy, thick-yarn, kelly-green, shapeless affair hand-knitted by someone who had never seen knitting needles before and should be legally prevented from ever touching them again. Someone who had appliqued on the most lurid, malproportioned, and frankly depraved-looking reindeer in the history of Christmas. Its red nose was a little pom-pom, and it looked as though it had had a few too many. _No one_ could carry off this jumper, though he earnestly wishes someone would.

A step behind him, and a low baritone murmurs, "What do you think?"

"When you said you'd take care of the jumpers, I never dreamed you'd find anything like this."

"Don't you like it? It certainly lives up to the spirit of the competition."

"Actually it surpasses every threshold of hideousness ever established for an ugly Christmas jumper competition."

“Surely you don’t mind? You can’t deny it’s festive, and it’s only once a year.”

“Once in a lifetime, you mean. Today and never again. Literally never. Ever. Again.”

Behind him a deep hum of satisfaction. “ _Result._ ”


	10. Carrot and stick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: chimney and Bah! Humbug!  
> Still trying to catch up.

Post-it left on the bathroom mirror: So, I hope you remember you agreed to watch “The Others” with me tonight.

Post-it left on the refrigerator: I know you don’t like it when I ogle Nicole Kidman, but get over it.

Post-it left on the milk: You are not going to ruin this film for me.

Post-it left on the toaster: And don’t say “I never ruin films for you.”

Post-it left on the breadbox: Because you mostly do. You figure out the plot or predict the dialogue or ridicule the protagonists.

Post-it left on the tea kettle: But not tonight. You’re going to show some self-control.

Post-it left on the box of tea: So you can just turn up on the sofa at the Appointed Hour.

Post-it left on the mug: Wear your pajama bottoms and that blue dressing-gown.

Post-it left on the sugar-bowl: Bring the warm mohair throw.

Post-it left on the dining table: If you let me enjoy the film I’ll massage your feet.

Post-it left on the chair: And your hands.

Post-it left on the violin-case: And after, I’ll give you the thank-you of your choice.

Post-it left on the music stand: But if you’re obnoxious, you’re sleeping on the sofa.

Post-it left on the mantelpiece: Or I’m sleeping upstairs.

Post-it left on the mirror above the chimney: And no thank-you.

Post-it left on the stocking hung by the chimney: Because you many not like scary movies, but you owe me one after making me watch “A Christmas Carol.”

Post-it left on the mobile: The little crutch by the chimney. For fuck’s sake.

Post-it left on the lapel of the Belstaff: Behave, or I’m going to spend all Christmas morning teaching our daughter to yell “BA! HUMBUG!” at the top of her lungs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosie calls Sherlock "Ba" in this universe.


	11. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Family

"Yah, he's all the family I've got."

The young man was too thin, too threadbare, sitting with all his possessions in carrier bags around him in the train car. But he was sturdy, unbent. As if he had a secret weapon keeping him strong. He did.

He wasn't talking to me; he was chatting with the older woman in the seat opposite. She was clearly in ecstasy, arthritic fingers digging deep but gentle into the silky black coat of a great black lab mix. The dog in turn grinned at her and made an attempt to put first one paw and then the other onto her lap. She pushed him away but so carefully, whispering,

"You know better, you do, not everyone will like that."

It wasn't a transcendent moment, at all. Just a lady and a young man, hardly more than a boy, bonding over a good-natured dog in a train car. The owner was a bit ragged but the dog's coat was shining, he was healthy and well-fed, and the woman—she slipped him a tenner and thanked him for letting her visit with his family. Calmed her down, she said.

He tried to refuse but she wouldn't let him, said, "if you don't need it, pass it on. Or buy a great bone for him at the butcher's," before she got off, two stops before mine. 

The dog hadn't finished spreading his good cheer. He was a one-man dog but had curiosity to spare. The young man kept his eye on him lest he annoy anyone, but the dog had the discretion to insist only with the passengers who were receptive.

This one creature was doing a lot, on that ride. The blend of boredom and tension that usually marks tube passengers lifted and people met each other's gaze with a smile for the dog's easy bonhomie. And by putting all his faith in his one person, the dog gave his owner a sense of strength, confidence.

It was palpable. Whatever he was going through now, the dog was steadying him: a gleaming, smiling, _gorgeous_ creature loved him and had faith in him.

I slipped him a tenner too, as I left the train. Like the lady, I owed it to him for a timely reminder. As I got off at Baker Street Station the dog was chewing contentedly on a plastic water bottle, happy to go wherever his person was taking them.

Con'd. in Ch. 12


	12. Light in my head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompts: Midnight  
> Not a creature was stirring

Con'd. from Ch. 11

It's midnight and I creep in quietly just in case, but he's up, of course. Sitting terribly straight over the microscope, his posture as always both disciplined and relaxed. A posh thing, I expect. Something they teach them in public schools.

Surprisingly he doesn't seem to have heard me. Lost in concentration. Me too, after awhile. Admiring his gleaming black hair, his lean but muscled frame. His confidence, his independence. And I think what it's always done for me to have him in my corner. He's more than in my corner, of course. He's the ground beneath my feet, the air inside my lungs. The light in my head.

He'd found me and picked me up and casually taken me home. He'd begun to patch me up, restore me like an instrument that looks destroyed but really only needs a gentle repair in order to work again. A knowledgeable hand, one that values you for what you still are, what you still can do. Gives you hope and heart, keeping the panic at bay.

His trust in me gave me trust in myself. Even if I could never operate again: I could learn something new. His calm reliance on me made me live up to it.

Ah. There it is: his broad grin, the one just for me. It's midnight and he's glad I'm home. My one and only, wind at my back and in my sails.

He tilts his head up to kiss me, and I plunge my hands into his hair without a second's remorse for how I'm disheveling it. I'll be doing a lot worse a few minutes from now, and from the pleased hum as I kiss him, he's well on board with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title pinched from The Waterboys, "Fisherman's blues," also quoted in the ficlet


	13. Cipher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Baby please come home"

The thing is, you can say so much in code.

Some coded messages are clear as day. “Vatican cameos.” You mean them to be, and they are.

Some are just a little disguised, just enough to give you plausible deniability. “Girlfriend? Not my area.” “I like my doctors clean-shaven.”

Some are protected by their very transparency. He’ll think you can’t actually mean what you’re clearly saying, so you’re completely safe saying it. He’ll assume you’re speaking in some kind of code, probably your patented snark. “That’s what I was suggesting!” “I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship.”

Some are deliberately murky, at least enough that if they should be deciphered you’d be shocked but thrilled. “Sherlock is really a girl’s name.”

But some coded messages are utterly opaque, meant to be clear to you and you alone. Like the songs you play that have lyrics far too telling, so you play them on the violin all filigreed around with ornamentation, so stretched or compressed with rhythmic variation, that their very composers couldn’t pick out the melody line. You play them plangently and insistently. Safely, knowing their revealing lyrics that strip your heart bare and fling it on mortifying display in the middle of the sitting-room rug are as well-concealed as the literal organ inside your chest.

You play insanely ornate, rococo versions of tunes whose banal _sentiments_ you both do and do not want to feel or to express. It hurts to do both, as much as it hurts to conceal them, so you disguise them as études, as partitas, as sonatas. You practise your detached denials in case he says, surprised, “That one sounds familiar, have you played it before?”

And if he should hear the actual melody beneath its careful disguise? Incredulous disdain. “Of course not, you know chart music’s _not my area_.”

“Smile Though Your Heart is Aching.” “Blue Christmas.” “Baby please come home.”

 _Please come home. Please_.


	14. Winter wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wonder

He wondered why the door to the flat was closed but not locked.

He wondered why there was a fire in the fireplace with no one tending it.

He wondered why there were no signs of a busy workday spent at home with microscope or petri dishes or tissue samples.

He wondered at the seasonal music playing on low volume.

He wondered at the twinkle lights framing the window over the mantelpiece.

He wondered at the lush fragrance of hot mulled wine, of all things, warming the air.

He circled the sitting-room, noting the violin, the coat, the shoes, the phone, and everything else that meant—if one was _observing_ —that their owner was at home.

He checked the hall and the bathroom, concluded there was only one option left, took off everything but his shirt and pushed open the door to the bedroom.

And wonder of wonders: lying arse-up on the bed, wearing nothing but a tiny smirk and seeming hardly to feel the chill, was the wonderful man who’d prepared all those clues for him to wonder at.

We’ll close the door on them, shall we, and leave them to it. Everyone deserves a little privacy at the holidays, after all.


	15. Walking through the Christmas tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Exhausted

We were walking through the Christmas lights and hysteria and excess but after hours, when the homeless—some I knew, most I didn’t—set up for the night. Every night it happened, all around London, more in the tourist areas than in the residential neighbourhoods. Seven Dials was no different; quirky little boutiques and smart shops lent their locked doorways to weary, frozen people with nowhere else to go.

It was terrible, and I said as much. “They look so exhausted. The cold is so draining.”

After a moment he answered: “It isn’t only the cold. There’s a specific kind of exhaustion that comes of never being sure you’ll be allowed to stay where you are. Of thinking someone’s coming presently to move you along.”

When I glanced over he looked so pinched and wretched that it was suddenly obvious that this was not only his own unfailing compassion; this was something he’d known himself. When had he ever—oh.

“Did you think that, when we first met? That you’d not be... allowed to stay?”

He thought a moment, as he always did now when he caught himself on the verge of an automatic reply that might not be completely true.

“No. I knew you’d keep me. I just didn’t know why, if I couldn’t help you with the Work. You told me often enough I was an idiot. I always thought you were on the verge of deciding I was a mistake after all, regretting your offer of a flat share.”

Now it was I who was frozen. No answer, no reaction, no expression, no movement. This was _unacceptable_.

“Well?” He pressed, his shoulder nudging mine as we walked.

“Well, what?” Not my best comeback; plus, I knew very well what.

“Does it change anything? Knowing that?” He wasn’t going to let this go, and perhaps he was right to pursue the point.

“Don’t be an ... of course not. What should it change? We’re where we are now, here. Any regrets I have apply only to the present.”

“Regrets?”

“Not about keeping you. Or valuing you. That was never in question. Just—regret that I didn’t let you know how much.” _Or about nearly calling you an idiot again just now, for that matter._

He didn’t answer. I knew that what I said was putting a plaster on a wound long since healed. He wasn’t wounded any longer; he wasn’t broken; he knew his place in the world and in our life now.

“It does help me see some past things in a different light. That’s all.”

He isn’t slow; he knew at once what I meant. “My ... mocking _up_.”

“Yes. It was a pre-emptive strike, I think.”

“Hmmmm.” He didn’t say any more, which meant he was considering it. Coloured lights glittered in the wet paving stones and oily puddles. When I hailed a cab he still hadn’t said more, and we rode home in silence.

continued in ch. 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Paul Simon, "The Late Great Johnny Ace"


	16. Posh mate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Escape

— Why did you leave, you posh git?

— Suddenly needed an escape. SH

— Also, I wish you wouldn’t. SH

— ?

— What?

— WHAT?

— Call me that. SH

— What, git?

— No, the other.

— Posh?

— Yes. That. SH

— Why not? You are.

— You do it to put distance between us. SH

— What are you on about?

— You said it yourself. “Mocking up.” SH

— That’s not what I meant.

— No, but it’s true nonetheless. SH

— I’ll think about it.

— Do. While you’re at it you can think about MATE as well. SH

— Yes, sir.

— 🙄 SH

— What’s wrong with mate?

— Same thing. Distancing mechanism. Puts me in my place. SH

— Oh. Well, I know where your place is, and you’re not in it. Get back here RTFN.

[...]

— I thought about it.

— Good. What did you conclude? SH

— You’re right. It’s insecurity and a pre-emptive strike.

— You’re insecure? SH

— Too right.

— About me? SH

— Got it in one.

— How is that even possible? SH

— You see, but you don’t observe.

[...]

— How long have you been waiting for a chance to use that on me? SH

— Literal years.

— It makes no sense. You’ve had dozens of lovers. For me there’s only you. SH

[...]

— Oh, come now. You aren’t counting him. SH

— Aren’t I just?

— I didn’t love him. I couldn’t even pretend to. SH

— You tried your best, though.

— And failed. There’s only you. SH

— For now.

— For good. Stop this. What are you insecure about, anyway? SH

— The lot. Looks. Class. Height.

— Height? SH

— How dared you? A man a head taller than me? You bastard.

[...]

— He wanted me. You didn’t. SH

[...]

— Well, you didn’t seem to. SH

— I wanted you. I always did. I—this is old news.

— Yes. Why are we going over it again? SH

— Because I’m jealous.

— Why now? SH

— The surveillance photos. I can’t unsee them. Not everyone can delete things like you.

— I'll be right home. If you can't delete, we can overwrite. Get out your camera and tripod. SH

Con'd. in ch. 17


	17. Neural pathways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Christmas present.  
> This chapter will be fairly opaque to those who haven't read "Drawn to Stars"--I'm really sorry. The two Procoffeinating paintings that illustrate the surveillance photos being "overwritten" are included at the end of this ficlet, pro memoria.

Con'd from ch. 16

He was as good as his word, of course.

He always is, now, except of course for secret surprises, when he can trot out his signature strategies for misdirection and concealment. Probably wants to make sure he doesn’t get rusty.

He came home from his walk with a plan half-formed; a request (rather, a demand) outstanding to his brother for certain surveillance photos; and a new timer and remote command to attach to my camera.

He spent the next hour or so scowling thunderously at the three or four photos that the British government sent along. Afterwards, while I was wrapping Christmas presents, I could see him deep in thought: not Mind Palace maintenance, but ordinary extraordinary-mortal thought. I set tea by his elbow and he ignored it until it went cold and was replaced by another cup.

Finally he shifted, stretched, and reached for a laptop. When I looked at the search history later I found _London church dome coffered ceiling_. Apparently he considered St Paul’s before settling on St Stephen Walbrook. Neither really resembled the setting of the photo carved deep into my brain, but, well, they were supposed to be slightly different, after all.

Bedroom: that one was easy. He laid me out face-up on the bed and curled himself around me like John Lennon around Yoko Ono in the Leibowitz portrait. Both of us nude, but not that much exposed. The camera he hung overhead with some arcane arrangement of cords and wires. Using the wireless remote, he took a few dozen shots of us in very slightly different positions and expressions and gestures. He made it feel so natural I forgot he was doing it.

Dome: that one was a little harder. We could have gotten into St Stephen’s by night, I suppose, but there wouldn’t have been the unearthly light of the Rome photo, and it would have been embarrassing beyond belief to be caught. So we did it before the church closed, with its normal evening lighting: me staring up at the cupola, his arms wrapped around me and his smile its own kind of light. Several different attempts there, too.

He tinkered with the lighting on Photoshop, and achieved dark blue-silver tinges that were closer to the originals than I’d have imagined possible.

The next days passed without much more discussion of Project Overwrite. The real-time experience of taking these shots couldn’t supplant the mental images of the originals—but for his tenderness during the process. As we did this strange reconstruction he was even more tactile and affectionate than usual, distracting me from the photography with kisses and caresses.

Certainly all of it gave me somewhere different to go to when I found my mind wandering into the toxic sludge of those remembered images.

And then, Christmas morning, him kissing me awake. Not with the usual intention: before I was even properly conscious, from under the bed he pulled out a frame with two photos in. And I saw that this was going to work, it was. Putting me in his own place, and himself in the other bloke’s, he had given me a visual for his devotion rather than having me imitate someone else’s. A stroke of genius: but then, he _is_ a genius, so no surprise there.

He murmured in that low voice that melts my bones. “You have to work on this, you know. Whenever you think of those, you have to look at these, or bring them to mind. It only works if you score new neural pathways.”

Well, I did, and it did. We exchanged other presents, of course we did, but that one was the best, for effort, inspiration, and effect. He took a knife out of my heart and replaced it with balm. Ultimately there are always two of us, and in this bed only the two of us, and he gave me a way to remember that.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184881477@N07/48900011847/in/dateposted-public/)

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184881477@N07/50364007158/in/dateposted-public/)

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184881477@N07/48866425068/in/dateposted-public/)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184881477@N07/50364854662/in/dateposted-public/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Procoffeinating is an amazing artist, and "Drawn to Stars" owes them a great deal. Now so does "Winter Light."


	18. A Certain Slant of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Winter

Between three and four p.m. in December the light in our bedroom is diffused, low, cool. Nothing like the warm sunlight of a summer afternoon that lies liquid and golden on his skin, on his hair, on his sleepy smile. This is the hour that is ours, when we are for each other alone, as often as we can humanly manage—and since it’s damn near sacrosanct for both of us, that means far more often than not.

Despite the chill on the room I almost prefer the winter: more comfortable to have every centimetre touching than in an urban summer; more rewarding to warm up together as the evaporating sweat cools. It isn’t only ever sex, of course. Sometimes it’s conversation, verbal or wordless; sometimes just touch; sometimes even sleep. But mostly—yes, mostly it’s also sex.

In bed we’re still rather a simple dyad; no role-play, no props, no costumes, no thirds, no accessories or aids or _toys_ , and no need for them, either. I suppose that could change, and of course I’d follow him anywhere he wanted to go; but it suits me to have him all to myself, his attention only on us, with what we get up to in bed being a natural outcome, neither studied nor pursued.

The hibernal light creates all the atmosphere we need: no candles or low music or mellow scents can enhance just seeing him stretched out beside me, bathed in its palette of pearl and grey. To watch that undersea light glide over the graceful length of his throat, his ivory chest, his endless legs, brings on the hunger faster even than touching him, smelling him. Perhaps because I spent so long watching before I ever could touch. His cock, curved languid along his thigh, makes my mouth fill with saliva, and I take its softness into my mouth and revel in the few seconds it remains that way. He’s incredibly responsive, always has been, and it’s only ever an eyeblink or two before he’s filling my mouth quite differently, his beautiful voice gone low and intent.

What he knows without my saying is that sometimes I just want to concentrate on this, only doing, only feeling, watching, hearing, smelling him. He understands and lets me have my way, arouse and adore and admire him, my hands everywhere I can get them, stroking a nipple so lightly he thrusts upward for more pressure, or brushing along his perineum until he groans, or slipping a thumb into his beautiful mouth, or cupping his luscious buttocks to pull more of his cock into my mouth, or pushing a finger so slowly, so tenderly into him that he loses his breath and his words. And by the time he comes I am as aroused as he, as eager to receive caresses as I had been to give them, my skin as flooded with sensation as if he had been touching me all along.

I can never get enough of him, in the winter light when our daily hour opens out into infinity and time goes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Emily Dickinson, "There's a certain slant of light / Winter afternoons / Oppresses, like the heft / Of cathedral tunes"


	19. "I will see the miracle accomplished": a 221b

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Miracle

I do not, and never will, believe in miracles. Events which violate the rules of physics or logic are either fraudulent or misconstrued. In my work most people are chasing a miracle: for something they know to be true to in fact _not_ be true. Indeed, my nearest brush with the miraculous was just the same: in one unexpected moment I found myself desperate for something to not be true. My intolerable freakishness, my wincing dislike of human proximity, my inevitable solitude: when I saw him for the first time I wanted those intransigent facts to melt away. They did, although it took years: _he is mine._ My miracle.

* * *

I believe in miracles. In this season we celebrate a miraculous birth. Even under the surface noise of shopping, holiday songs, pressure to achieve continuous elation, and all the rest of it, at bottom it’s all about a miracle. Sitting in the firelight I thought of all the miracles in my life: becoming a surgeon. Surviving catastrophic injury. Meeting him. Having a daughter. Getting him back.

That last one stopped me cold: a true miracle, while the others were brilliantly lucky chances. He was dead, lost to me forever, and I’d dragged my dead self through twenty-six months of mourning him. _He came back._ Miracles? You bet I believe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Vedrò compirsi il miracolo," from Eugenio Montale, "Forse un mattino andando"


	20. Sentiment and sentimentality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sentiment

It took me long enough to see what more ordinary minds were born knowing: that sentiment isn’t a disadvantage to living, it is virtually the _sine qua non_ for it. Because my brain works differently than others, like a multi-dimensional chess game, my mental model of consciousness was of circuits along which information flies. Such information can either travel cleanly, through conscious ratiocination (or even subconscious processing), or it can be disrupted, slowed, or blocked by the barriers, detours, and shunts of affective filters. Even now I find it difficult to slow down the sequence of my thinking to make it clear to others, and I thought this the optimal, most advantageous way to reason and to experience. Having to think through the biological circuits of a human body was regrettable, I thought; sub-par at best; to be compensated for by rigorously excising all physical and emotional interference in the flow of _pure information_.

Meeting him threw that model into utter disarray, though it took me years to revise it. Even geniuses are remarkably slow to relinquish a cherished hypothesis to accommodate new data. I thought I could take him into my life by forcing my worldview upon him; instead, I had to change my worldview in order to take him into my life.

Datum after datum combined to show me that sentiment is not a defect, a deformation, or a disadvantage. Instead it is the highlighter that connects otherwise disparate pieces of data: the backdrop that makes a vague and banal song, for example, speak clearly and only of one’s own experience. The associative glue that binds us to any input that reminds us of something precious. Sentiment, in sober fact, fulfills a myriad of functions that I had not understood. It is a way of organizing data. It is data in itself. And it is what makes the human person capable of, and desirous of, processing data, and functioning, and surviving.

When I had stripped sentiment away from my daily experience to the best of my ability, I found I had stripped away the _best_ of my ability. I’d left myself a shaking madman, that “rocket tearing itself apart on the launch pad,” in thrall to anything that would distract or harness my racing thoughts—and ludicrously, I thought _that_ was optimal. My foolish superficiality and disastrous hubris in my dealings with Moriarty before his death—they were revealed to me in full when I had to die to save people I cared for, to save _one person_ most of all.

One person, who has reminded me on more than one occasion that sentiment is not the same as sentimentality. I may have been slow to learn that lesson, but having learned it I am in fact more than I was before I mastered it. More myself, better at the Work, less hungry for distraction, infinitely happier, and capable of adding to the happiness of others. In sum, sentiment has made the world make sense, rather than weakening its sense. 


	21. The Parting Glass (a 221b)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hermetic universe, which for a few minutes a day has only two inhabitants. They don’t even need names.
> 
> They wouldn't want to live always in such isolation, but in the winter light, when time cracks open, there are always—only—two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: And to all a good night

Benevolent readers, we come to the end of this blog.

Because I loved him from the very beginning, I didn't think I’d survive being without him. Belonging to him (and him to me) so immediately, I never thought I’d _have_ to survive being without him. Beyond the instantaneous allegiance, attraction, acceptance, there was a bond of understanding that I thought would never fail us. Bound in mind and heart, sharing a living space and indeed a living, we weren’t even really separate people, but rather two sides of the same coin: opposites, sure, but also identical, coextensive, in so many ways. Brave enough to face a world we didn’t fit into anymore, or ever. Bright enough to know when people were humouring us but were wrong to feel superior. Burdened by tenacious desires we weren’t comfortable acknowledging even to ourselves, let alone to anyone else. But we were opposites, too: one brilliant, one industrious; one bored, one stoic; one mercurial, one stolid.

Bizarrely, as compatible and almost co-dependent as we were, we still managed to misread each other for six years—though in fairness, two of those years were spent apart, me barely breathing and him burning to get back to me. Bridging that divide at last, we aren’t a him and an I anymore; instead we are, euphorically, a _both_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know _what_ in the world got into John--or what John got into, though I'm guessing it was a single malt. I've never known him so waggish before, but he can always surprise me.
> 
> Thank you wonderful humans for reading and commenting, and now I'll answer those lovely comments. 
> 
> Thank you MissDavis for the prompts and impetus to write in December!


End file.
